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When it comes to World Cup draws, Australia’s youth teams don’t seem to be able to catch a break at the moment. Just over two weeks after the Young Socceroos were paired with the extremely challenging trio of Spain, Costa Rica and Ecuador in Group C of the U20 World Cup, the U17 Joeys were handed an equally difficult task.
If variety is truly the spice of life than the Joeys will be in for one heck of a ride when they face up to Brazil, Ivory Coast and Denmark at June’s U17 World Cup in Mexico.
“The advantage that we have going into the tournament is that the majority of our squad is based at the Australian Institute of Sport and the players are very familiar with each other, so it is easier to work on the details,” explained Youth teams coach Jan Versleijen following the draw and the Dutchman is not wrong.
In fact, Mexico will double as a test of Versleijen’s work at the AIS.
To overcome such high quality opposition Australia will need to use possession wisely with their movement off the ball crucial to breaking down their opponents.
Both Football Federation Australia and the local football community will be watching Versleijen closely to see not just how far his players go in the tournament but how they get there.
Meanwhile, I find myself thinking about young Julius Davies who should have been involved in national youth team action for Australia during the upcoming European summer.
Essentially the story goes that Davies was with the Joeys in Uzbekistan in 2009 when the midfielder was informed that he was no longer eligible to play for Australia following FIFA tweaking the rule to protect young footballers from being exploited.
Players were informed they needed to have lived in a country they weren’t born in for five years before switching allegiances and Davies, who’d come to Australia after losing both his parents in Sierra Leone’s Diamond Wars, only spent four years in Perth before joining Bayern Munich’s youth system.
So now Davies has been left in international limbo.
While Football Federation Australia are still going in to bat for the youngster in his quest to represent his adopted country things look bleak.
‘We will keep trying but it just seems that every avenue brings a negative answer,” FFA’s national teams and football development chief John Boultbee told the Sydney Morning Herald late last week.
Even though I’m looking forward to these two youth tournaments later this year, especially as I’ll be on the ground at both of them, I wont be able to shake the disappointment that Julius Davies, the man FIFA seems to have left behind, won’t be there.
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